Independence Day

The state of our pantry has been bothering me for some time. Somewhere in the post-wedding collapse--wherein all attempts at keeping on top of chores, cleaning, or rudimentary cooking went out the window and nothing but paying the bills happened on a regular basis--I stopped cooking on a regular basis. I still made things when we had people over, but the experimenting and cataloging of shared favorites stopped.

Have you seen the number of kitchen gadgets and cookbooks we got for wedding presents? This simply will not do!

I told M today that I wanted to brave the grocery store (remarkably empty) and try out a few things. Despite living in Southern California all of my life, I had not made pico de gallo from scratch. It's so very simple, terribly tasty, and now I can balance it anyway I like (less cilantro, more garlic, more lime). It's also Oh So Pretty, don't you think?

Home-made cocktail sauce and grilled shrimp with lime? Also very easy, also so very tasty that we wondered why we hadn't tried it before. M took this wonderful picture of grilled corn, that we are too full just now to eat (but will likely turn into an evening snack):

It's also his doing that we have pictures to share at all. :)

I will also be roasting a chicken, making soup for the freezer, making stock for the freezer and auditioning a potential 30th Birthday Cake tomorrow. I've missed playing in the kitchen, and M's pretty happy with my return to the culinary arts. The grilling masterwork here is all M. I just make the sauces, and the grocery lists. ~_^